I have these neighbors. We will call them Wilfredo and Valentina, because those are their actual names. Cool, right? Well, they ARE cool and totally live up to those epic names. They moved in downstairs about eight months ago from New Jersey and we have become close friends. So close, in fact, that my two year old son, E, feels totally comfortable opening their front door and walking right in to say hello at any hour of the day. (Yeah, we’re working on the whole concept of knocking.)

Wilfredo and Valentina are both avid athletes. It’s not uncommon to see them sprinting up and down the steep hill in front of our building, or doing interval training in the parking lot at dawn. And rain or shine, Wilfredo is running his heart out, getting ready to run UltraMarathon races, and Valentina is probably completing a 50 mile bike ride as part of her triathlon training before heading off to work. They have a serious love for activity, the outdoors, and competition.

They’re also VEGAN.

Now, we eat many animal products in our house. We eat plenty of veggies and fruits, too. But we are decidedly not vegan.

Our tribe here has expanded to enfold Wilfredo and Valentina into our hearts. We want to fully integrate them into our little community and become a safe place for these New Jersey transplants.

But here’s the thing: I love them. I love them BIG. They love my kid fiercely and he loves them fiercely right back. My love language is food. So, in order to share our table with them, I’ve been experimenting with dishes outside of my normal food repertoire.

But here’s another thing: Every single person in our tribe has special food things. E takes the (gluten-free, nut-free, egg-free, dairy-free, soy-free, carrot-free) cake because of his FPIES, but he certainly is not the only one who needs special food. But nobody has excluded animal products entirely from their diets.

Until now.

So, when the tribe decided to do a vegan brunch a few weeks ago, I accepted this challenge with great excitement. Because even though you will never see me sprinting up and down the hill for funsies, I do love a good challenge. And if the challenge translates to a little food love, then even better.

Everyone can technically eat corn, including E. I typically try to avoid it, but it doesn’t make me feel like wheat does. I also wanted to do a homestyle dish that was still healthy and everyone could enjoy. I began to dream about casseroles, baked dishes, and rich, flavorful sauces.

Creamy, hot polenta dishes started filling my mind. It’s easy to veganize polenta. So, I scoured the internet looking for recipe ideas. I hit a wall when I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for and started getting frustrated.

Then I remembered that I can cook. DUH.

I started extracting favorite elements from dishes that looked great. Easy enough. Then I got to work.

I discovered that making the polenta first and baking it for a bit gave it the perfect texture. Scoring it, and then topping it with a simple tomato and veggie mixture and putting it in the oven to bake longer made mouth magic.

I brought my finished polenta dish before our tribe. I know I can count on them to give me their honest feedback. They tasted. They went back for seconds. They lamented when it was over, especially Wilfredo and Valentina. Luckily, I made an extra dish of it just for them, and walked it downstairs after brunch was done. They were stoked.

This dish is the classic, simple-food-done-right, love-in-a-Pyrex pan taste of comfort every person needs in their life. Probably right now.

You can make your own variations by using what you have on hand. THIS DOESN’T HAVE TO BE VEGAN. But then again, you can’t share it with your awesome vegan neighbors if it’s not. So, prepare wisely.

Ingredients for Polenta:

2 cups dry polenta

4 cups unsweetened, unflavored hemp milk (or regular milk)

2/3 cup water

½ cup Nutiva Shortening, or butter

1-2 tsp sea salt

Ingredients for Ragu:

1 jar crushed tomatoes

2 fresh tomatoes, chopped

1 onion, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, crushed

1 bunch spinach or chard, chopped

1-2 zucchini, chopped

2 Tbsp olive oil

4 leaves fresh basil, or 1 Tbsp dried

4 leaves fresh sage, or 1 tsp dried

1 Tbsp fresh rosemary, or 1 Tbsp dried

1 Tbsp black pepper

1 tsp sea salt

Directions for Polenta:

Cook polenta according to instructions on package, subbing water for milk. Add additional water to thin it out. It should be a smooth, creamy texture, and easy to stir.

2:55pm, Tuesday

I’m going to attempt something really ridiculous. Ready?

I will blog while my toddler is awake.

(I’m trying to get a head start at this while he is asleep, FYI.)

As every Work-From-Home-Parent [WFHM] knows, nap time is GOLDEN. All of the emails and texts you’ve been half-assedly (totally a word) responding to between buttering toast, playing dress up, unsnapping stuck legos, refilling water, putting toys back together, being a human racetrack and jungle gym? They get finished. You get to do the real work, too. Like feed yourself. Maybe take a shower. Type an entire sentence without your two year-old turning off your computer in one stealth move.

It’s like two hours of industrious, work-like-a-maniac Heaven.

But what if your kid doesn’t sleep? What if your kid can only sleep on you? What if your kid decides to boycott nap time when you have a deadline or an important conference call? What then?

You let them watch TV. Lots and lots of TV. Except, what if your kid doesn’t like TV? I know what you’re thinking, “What kid doesn’t like TV?!”.

My kid….just woke up.

3:12pm

Where was I? Nap time is golden. Right. This whole work from home thing, unless your kid is napping, is HARD. I don’t know how you parents who work as accountants and speak in numbers ever get a complete thought out. I use words, and words are what everyone else uses. But you use numbers.

(Snack break. And I had to find his favorite matchbox car.)

(Where did that plastic bag come from? Nope, he definitely can’t have it.)

(Wrong snack. He wanted a rice cake, not mango. Duh.)

(Needs activity. Giving him his new National Geographic Kids magazine.)

3:31pm

Of course, parenting in general is challenging unless your kid is asleep. That’s the best thing ever. Do you know how productive I am during his sleep hours? I feel like I have my brain back.

(Good God, WHERE DID HE FIND A BOTTLE OF WINE? It is still sealed shut with the foil intact. At least he knows to bring it to mommy…?)

3:37

(Neighbor just got here. We are “working” together. Kind of. After a quick social media update for our websites.)

3:44

(Neighbor is now getting sidetracked, taking care of toddler and giving him attention. This is a great plan. I can get my work done!)

(And now my son has has officially abandoned the neighbor, and piled all of his stuffed animals on me.)

3:49

Am I still even writing? Because I have NO IDEA what the frick I was saying to you. Clearly it wasn’t that important, otherwise I would be able to pick right back up where I left off.

Words? Numbers? Algebra? What?

(And now I smell poop. Damnit.)

(Diaper check did not reveal poop, but there was too much pee to let it go. Then I had to let him climb me like a playground for a minute.)

(He’s “all done” with the rice cakes. Now we’re moving on to a super nutritious snack of tortilla chips.)

4:02

To be honest, I’m surprised that I complete any one task, work or otherwise, while my toddler is awake. If he’s not distracting me on purpose, I’m getting distracted on accident because I love to watch him move. I love to see how he interacts with his toys, so I end up shooting sly glances and smiling to myself because he totally melts me.

(Except he dumped out all of his chips while I was writing that last thought because I refused to eat the chip he offered me. Heartwarming, right? Is it bedtime yet? Wine time? BRB after I sweep up the mess.)

4:17

(Refilling his water bottle because he just dropped his cars into mine to tell me he was thirsty. Obvi.)

4:22

This work-from-home thing isn’t for the faint of heart. All of you parents who figure out how to do this with with limited (if any) childcare or other support are my heroes. And if you have multiple kids and do this, I will buy you dinner in exchange for your WFHP wizardry tips and tricks.

(Nope. That is DEFINITELY poop. Did he eat a rotten goat? That is gagtastic.)

(How did poop get on my shirt? And my elbow? Quick break for a change of clothes and baby wipe bath.)

4:55

My husband is home, and he’s early, which means it’s time to take a shower and then start dinner. I’ll clean this post up later tonight, during the most productive hours of my day when my son is sound asleep, and we are all fed and bathed and content after a long Tuesday.

I am burned out with cooking. And a large part of my mission in life is cooking. Changing the conversation around food, around bodies, around babies and single people and periods and sex and family and allergies and wholeness and therapy and kombucha and…ALL OF IT.

I just have one small problem.

I want to flame my tiny pink kitchen down to the ground. Ignight it. Light it up and watch it burn down in a blaze of glory, a la Bon Jovi. (I will gladly let you film this spectacle as I stand in the middle of the flames wearing nothing but my mom jeans and an old leather vest that belonged to my grandma in the 1990s with my son’s pink ukulele strapped to my back in exchange for a lifetime of free Chipotle.)

Then I want to walk away, and never look back.

This isn’t about food. This isn’t about my outdated micro kitchen. This isn’t even about my mission.

This is about self-care.

Last week, I started doing the thing where I eat trail mix for breakfast with a cup of coffee. Then I eat the same thing for lunch. I might grab a handful of cherry tomatoes or eat some cucumber slices off my son’s plate during lunch and start congratulating myself for making vegetables a “priority”. By the time dinner rolls around, I’m ravenous, have a terrible case of the bitchies and lose my words, so I groan and cry and end up laying on my bed in complete despair when I should be making dinner for my family. That is the moment when I want to douse my kitchen in gasoline, light it up with my Namaste candle and run away.

The trail mix is a bad sign, my friends. It means I’m giving up. I HATE GIVING UP. But sometimes I hate the process of not giving up more. It feels good to pretend I can’t cook. It feels like a whole lotta relief to plan to cook dinner and then say “eff it” at the last minute and orderThai takeout instead. It’s like a shot of heroin or the feeling you get when you cancel plans last minute because you want to stay home and watch Netflix in yoga pants and you have a legit, last-minute reason to do it.

Don’t get me wrong. These food hacks are totally okay. We all hit our max, and sometimes we live at our max for extended periods of time without much relief. There are seasons. I get it. I’ve been there.

But this isn’t it.

This is abandoning my commitment to taking care of myself. So, now that the world knows what that looks like, here’s what maintaining my commitment to taking care of myself looks like.

(Note: It might look differently for you, so no judgment here. Pound that trail (mix).)

Ready?

Hot breakfast.

The end.

I don’t eat many grains because, with the exception of rice and sometimes oats, they really tear my stomach up. Plus, I FEEL better when I eat a protein and veggie heavy breakfast during the rest of the day. I like the feeling of something warm in my belly, too. It reminds me that my body is served best when I care for it in small ways. Plus, I don’t have to fight the trail mix bitchies.

What prep looks like in my tiny pink kitchen.

Here is my plan of action: Fritatta. I make one large fritatta, portion it out into individual servings, and heat it up in the toaster oven while I get ready in the mornings. This is all it takes to make me nice. Well, this and a cup or seven of coffee.

This simple, humble little egg dish is great. You can make a million different variations of it, but here is my absolute favorite. The fact that I can go outside and gather many of these ingredients from my garden is a total bonus.

Ingredients:

12 eggs

1 cup cheese (I prefer parmesan or asiago)

1/2 cup half and half

1 lb of browned sausage or cooked bacon, crumbled (I prefer mild Italian sausage, but you can skip meat altogether to make this vegetarian.)

1 medium onion, sauteed

12 oz chopped broccoli

2 medium zucchini, chopped

2 large tomatoes or 1 pint of cherry tomatoes, chopped

1 large bunch of swiss chard or spinach, roughly chopped

3 Tbsp of fresh herbs of your choice, or 1 Tbsp dried herbs. (I use rosemary, basil, and thyme from the garden)

In a large, greased baking dish, bake at 350 degrees for one hour, or until the middle is cooked all the way through.

Remove from oven and serve immediately. Cut into individual portions and reheat in the oven or toaster oven for 12 minutes at 350 degrees.

My individual frittata portions are hanging out in my fridge, ready to be heated and eaten all week long. I blasted Bon Jovi’s greatest hits while prepping and cooking and cleaning up the kitchen to make this all a little more tolerable. But I digress. I WILL TAKE CARE OF MYSELF THIS WEEK. I hope you can, too.

You know how you have friends coming over and you want to cook for them, but lack the kitchen space, air conditioning, and energy to execute it?

Yeah. Me, too.

Here’s The Thing, though. I am fairly certain my love language is food. And I’m also fairly certain I have conditioned my family and friends to receive my love in this manner. Food is NOT love, but food can be a loving gesture in a world of convenience and fast meals. What’s better than sitting down with friends and sharing a great meal, enjoyable conversation, and choice adult beverage? Not much.

Also, food is effing delicious, so there’s that.

When I want to share the love and keep the temperature in my kitchen down while making the most of my limited energy, I always turn to my crockpot. I used to have major bias towards slow cookers. I grew up with crockpots galore at church potlucks. Everyone clamored for an outlet to plug in their pot before service started so their mystery dish would stay hot and avoid poisoning a whole congregation. It was a sea of crockpots

A couple of decades later, I decided to try to resurrect my slow cooker that was still sitting in my kitchen in the box from our wedding when my truly kind souled cousin gifted us with it. I got brave. I bought the food. I read a couple of blogs. I studied and sweated and prayed to the kitchen gods that it would all turn out beautifully. It didn’t.

I ruined a 5 lb brisket.

$40 of beautiful, succulent, grass-fed meat totally ruined because I didn’t understand fully how to use my slow cooker. I did not sear it. I under-seasoned it. I ADDED WATER. Then I cooked it on high for 4 hours. It was totally inedible, but of course we ate it anyway because we have a strict budget and can’t afford to toss food when it doesn’t turn out well. I nicknamed it the Brisket of Tears, because I wept when I ruined it, and again every time I ate the chewy, gray, tasteless meat.

A couple of years ago, I decided to master the crockpot. I did a massive amount of research. After a week of fretting and praying and hoping that I could pull it off, I made a pork shoulder. It was phenomenal. It gave me confidence. And I went further into the slow-cooker abyss.

When I found a ridiculously good sale on New Zealand grassfed lamb, I knew I could execute it well. My dish would not go the way of the church potluck or failed brisket attempt of 2009. Nope. It would succeed.

This is probably one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. I’m not exaggerating in the least. The flavor of the lamb is complex and finishing the whole dish off in the oven to crisp up the fat made this dish completely decadent.

Combine all ingredients (except for lamb) in blender or NutriBullet. Pulse until everything is combined. Pour over lamb and marinate in a ziplock bag or covered dish for 2-12 hours, or if you’re in a hurry, skip the marination and use right away.

Rub crockpot with a little oil, and put lamb and marinade in. For best results, cook on Low for 6-8 hours. Eight hours is optimal, but do what you can.

When the lamb is finished in the slow cooker, transfer to a baking sheet and bake on 375 degrees for 20-30 minutes to crisp up the fat and caramelize.

Garnish with chopped mint leaves and devour immediately.

I served this with a side of saffron infused basmati rice, pan fried mushrooms and sweet onion, along with a fruit-filled salad. There wasn’t even a speck of lamb left on the bones, and we devoured an entire plate in 20 minutes flat.

You will love this. Trust me. Or don’t. But take a chance. And make friends with your crockpot this summer.

I know. You just read “hemp” in the title and immediately assumed it was about marijuana. I GET IT. I live in Oregon, where it is now legal to smoke, grow, and posses these controversial little plants.

But that’s not what this post is about. Because I’m not about to touch that conversation with a 10 ft bong pole.

Hemp hearts. These are the shelled seeds of the hemp plant, and they are loaded with maximum nutrition. Back when we were trying to find new and varied protein sources for my food intolerant toddler, these were a saving grace. I mixed them with a little bit of raw honey to make them barely sticky, and gave my kid the spoon.

He was a serious fan.

Now that summer is squarely upon us, I have zucchini coming out of my ears. It’s one of my kid’s favorite foods so I planted a few little seedlings…and they grew. In fact, they’re mutant and grow as big as my head. Or roughly seven times as big as my hand.

We have to get creative to use them all, so I’ve been trying out different recipes using as few ingredients as possible to maintain the natural flavor of the fantastic zucchini, and to get them out of my kitchen fast.

I made a fast coating of hemp seeds, arrow root, a dash of tumeric, paprika and salt. They were a fast hit with my family, and we chowed all of them.

ALL. OF. THEM.

They went so fast that I didn’t even manage to get a good picture because they were so tasty and nobody could wait for a dumb camera.

Hi! I’m Carrie.

Several years ago, I embarked on a journey to hold my life with empowered wellness. It started with community, both online and in real life. It breathed and it grew and it spilled over into my work, my marriage, my family, and brought forth a remarkable son with special challenges. It's not perfect, it's a little quirky and sometimes frayed around the edges, but I love this life. And I want to share it with you. More about Carrie

Our Stable Table does not intend to dispense medical advice and should not be considered medical advice or counsel. If you have a question about your health or the health of your child or loved one, please consult your physician. The stories and information here are anecdotal and of personal opinion only and should not be used as a substitute for medical help.